JUDAH’S KING MANASSEH

33 Manasseh was twelve years olds when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. 2 He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.t 3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn downu and reestablished the altars for the Baals. He made Asherah poles, and he bowed in worship to all the stars in the sky and served them. 4 He built altarsv in the Lord’s temple, where the Lord had said, “Jerusalem is where my name will remain forever.”w 5 He built altars to all the stars in the sky in both courtyardsx of the Lord’s temple. 6 He passed his sons through the fire in Ben Hinnom Valley.y He practiced witchcraft, divination, and sorcery, and consulted mediums and spiritists.z He did a huge amount of evil in the Lord’s sight, angering him.

7 Manassehaa set up a carved image of the idol, which he had made, in God’s templeab that God had spoken about to David and his son Solomon: “I will establish my name forever* ac in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.ad 8 I will never again remove the feet of the Israelites from the land where I stationed your* a ancestors,b if only they will be careful to do all I have commanded them through Moses—all the law, statutes, and judgments.” 9 So Manasseh caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to stray so that they did worse evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

MANASSEH’S REPENTANCE

10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they didn’t listen.c 11 So he brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria. They captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.d